


The Dharma Years: 1974

by bayloriffic



Series: The Dharma Years [1]
Category: Lost
Genre: F/M, Missing Scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-01
Updated: 2010-07-01
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:33:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayloriffic/pseuds/bayloriffic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exploration of what happened after the Left Behinders joined the Dharma Initiative, with a focus on the development of Juliet and Sawyer's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dharma Years: 1974

**Author's Note:**

> The official timeline of the show is a little confusing, so I’m just assuming that they were in Dharma from January 1974 until July 1977.
> 
> Originally published on LJ in June 2010.

** January 1974 **

After Sawyer convinces Juliet not to leave, to give him two more weeks, the two of them stay out at the dock for a little bit longer. They don’t talk much, just sit there and stare out in to the darkness that seems to stretch out forever. 

It’s a little surreal, to say the least. The whole idea that they’re actually in the 1970s, sitting on this dock with a Dharma submarine behind them, a submarine that could get them the hell off this rock. And yet, here they are, Sawyer convincing her to stay with him even though they should both be taking this chance to run like hell, get as far away from this place as they can. 

It was a hell of a lot easier than he thought it would be, truth be told, and he starts to wonder if she might really believe this will all work itself out in just two weeks. 

“God, I could really use a shower,” Juliet says, out of the blue. 

Sawyer looks over at her and she’s kind of leaning back on her hands, looking back towards the jungle instead of at the water or at the sub. He doesn’t think she looks too bad, maybe a little grimy, but they’ve spent the past few days tromping through the jungle so that’s only to be expected. 

She looks over at him, catches him staring. “Think the use of the Dharma showers comes with Horace’s two week invitation?” she asks, doing that smirking thing she does, the one that used to make him want to smack her, but now just makes him smile.

“Well,” he says, getting to his feet. “Let’s find out.” He reaches out a hand to help her up, and she doesn’t even hesitate before she takes it, pulling on his hand a little and getting to her feet easily. 

They start the walk back to the barracks in silence, and Sawyer notices, not for the first time, even with all of the crazy shit they’re going through, how easy it is just to be around her.

*

The sub that’s supposed to show up in the next two weeks gets delayed because of some typhoons out in the Pacific, so they end up waiting another two weeks for it to arrive. The rest of the month is kind of a holding period for them, the five of them nervously waiting to get found out, doing whatever odd jobs Horace needs done, and all living together in one small house. 

The place is a little cramped—a tiny one-bedroom, the four guys bunking together, while Juliet gets the couch. It’s a pain in the ass, but Sawyer just spent three months holed up in a tent made from a tarp and airplane wreckage, so sharing a room with three other guys ain’t exactly the hardest living he’s done recently.

The morning before they’re scheduled to leave on the sub, Horace shows up at their front door and pulls Sawyer aside, the two of them standing out of the porch.

“Jim,” he says, in a voice that Sawyer’s already beginning to recognize as his _do me a favor_ voice, “I was wondering if I could ask you a favor.” 

“Sure, H,” Sawyer nods seriously, slipping easily into his role. “What’s up?” 

Turns out, a couple of the new recruits dropped out at the last minute and now Horace has got a few open spots to fill. If they choose, they can stay as long as they want. They’ll just need to take the aptitude tests and get their work assignments and they’ll be bona fide members of the Dharma Initiative. 

Sawyer listens to him quietly, forcing himself not to smile or act too relieved, and finally tells Horace that he’ll talk it out with the rest of his crew and get back to him first thing in the morning.

*

That night they have a group meeting, weighing the pros and cons of staying or going. Jin’s firmly in the “stay” camp, clearly determined to somehow make it back to the right time, back to Sun and his normal life. He can’t really express that clearly, but Sawyer can tell by the look in Jin’s eyes that he’s not giving up. Sawyer figures he probably gets pretty much the same look when he thinks about seeing Kate again.

Miles seems a little less sure, but throws his vote in with the “stay” camp as well. He doesn’t talk much about his reasons, but, truth be told, Sawyer don’t care all that much about the particulars. All that matters to him is that it’s another vote for his plan. Plus, he’s got this feeling like Juliet will be more likely to stick around if everybody else does.

“I’m going to leave,” Faraday says, so unexpectedly that Sawyer almost jumps at the sound of his voice. He’s practically forgotten the guy was even there. He’s said maybe five words since they’ve been here and it figures that the first time he manages to string together a complete sentence it’s in the service of fucking up Sawyer’s plan.

“You’re gonna leave?” Sawyer repeats, annoyed. “What the hell for?” 

But Daniel’s gone again, staring off into space, looking twitchy and unfocused. Wonderful. Sawyer takes a deep breath and looks over at Juliet. “What about you, Blondie?” he asks, his voice softening. “Stay or go?”

Juliet looks up at him, holding his gaze for what feels like forever before she shifts her focus to Dan. She still doesn’t say anything and Sawyer starts to feel a little panicked.

She runs a hand through her hair and sighs. “I’m staying,” she finally says, and Sawyer gets this feeling in his chest like a giant weight has been lifted. When she looks back over at him, she’s smiling a little, but looks inexplicably sad. 

Still, Sawyer can’t help but smile back at her, feeling almost absurdly relieved that she’s sticking with him.

*

About an hour after Daniel boards the sub for Ann Arbor, Horace shows up at the house with their permanent living assignments. 

Somehow, Horace is under the mistaken impression that Sawyer and Juliet are a couple, so they get put in one house and Miles and Jin get put in the other. 

When they tell him he’s got the wrong impression, he looks pained and tells them that things might get a little complicated since those are the only two houses available for at least six months. 

Sawyer looks over and Juliet and she just shrugs, which pretty much decides it. Plus, this way the housing situation is resolved without the four of them having to get into a big discussion about it. But it’s still a little awkward, especially since Miles keeps leering at Juliet and making obscene hand gestures at Sawyer any time Horace turns his back. Or, at least, he does until Juliet catches him and then stares at him in that way she has, like she’s going to completely fuck him up once Horace leaves. 

After that, Miles stands quietly and somberly while Horace goes over some of the community ground rules with them, only occasionally glancing at Juliet and him, this look on his face like he’s on his best behavior.

Beyond that, Sawyer doesn’t realize it’s even an issue until they get to their new place, which of course only has one bedroom and one bed. 

In the end, he just volunteers to sleep on the couch, mostly because he’s still a little worried she’s gonna spook and hop the next sub out of here. Besides, the couch ain’t too bad and, at the very least, it sure as shit beats sleeping out in the jungle or in a room with three other guys. 

**

** February **

The first week of February, Horace announces that they’ll be taking their aptitude tests in a few days, so that they can be placed in their permanent work assignments. 

The whole situation freaks Sawyer out way more than it probably should. It’s just, the last time he had a real job, he was fourteen years old and worked at a car wash, and he knows he ain’t got anything close to marketable skills. 

He spends the next few days obsessing over what job he’s gonna get stuck with, finally deciding he’s probably going to end up a _Workman_ , which is just glorified Dharma lingo for Janitor. 

It fucking pisses him off when he thinks about it, how he worked so hard to save all of them and now he’s gonna be a fucking maid or garbage man or some shit. 

He gets particularly moody the morning of the test, snapping at Juliet and stomping around the house like a kid throwing a tantrum. When Juliet asks him to please not leave his boots in the middle of the bathroom floor, he completely flips out on her, calling her a bitch and ranting about sharing a house with someone who’d just as soon kill him as look at him. 

And, yeah, he knows he’s being a dick, but whatever. She’s going to probably be assigned chief of Dharma medicine and he’s gonna be stuck mopping the damn floors, so if she doesn’t like where he leaves his boots she can move them her own damn self. 

Besides, none of it actually seems to faze her, since no matter what he says, she just gives him the same blank look and walks away without saying a word. 

* 

Horace shows up at their house bright and early the next morning, a stack of papers and two folded up jumpsuits in his hand, one blue, one khaki. 

Sawyer feels kind of tense and nervous, standing there as Horace sorts through the papers. Finally, after what feels like forever, Horace looks up at him and smiles, handing him the khaki jumpsuit. “Well, Jim, ” he says, “looks like you’ll be rounding out our security team.”

Sawyer tamps down the smile that’s threatening to break out and takes the uniform from Horace, glancing at Juliet out of the corner of his eye. She’s smiling a little, the corners of her mouth turned up, and, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say she looked proud of him. 

Horace hands Juliet her jumpsuit and informs her that she’s going to be on the motor pool, which Sawyer thinks is more than a little weird. She’s been mostly doing clerical work the past couple of weeks, working in the main office with Amy or occasionally helping out in the school, and he can’t imagine why she would be assigned mechanic duty. 

Still, though, she doesn’t seem thrown by it, just accepts her uniform and thanks Horace for stopping by. After the boss-man finally makes his way out the door, Sawyer tosses his jumpsuit on the couch and looks over at Juliet.

“Motor pool?” he says, confused. “I thought for sure you’d be head doctor or somethin’.”

“I think they generally only give that job to people with medical degrees, James,” she says, smirking at him and unfolding her navy blue jumpsuit. 

He doesn’t bother pointing out that that doesn’t actually exclude her. “Or, hell,” he says, instead, “at least be assigned to teach science to all the little Dharma kiddies, maybe stick to the front office with Amy, be runnin’ this whole place before long.” He waits for her to respond, but she just kind of shrugs. 

The thing is, it’s bugging him. That she ain’t bothered by bein’ assigned a job that’s clearly beneath her. “What’d you do,” he asks, because he just can’t seem to let it go for some reason, “throw the exam on purpose?” 

She just shrugs again and smiles, running her fingers across the _Juliet, Motor Pool_ embroidered on her jumpsuit. 

He watches her for a few minutes and, shit, she did. She messed up the exam on purpose. Like she wanted to be a grease monkey instead of one of the million more respectable jobs she could’ve gotten. 

It’s really fucking strange, but Sawyer tells himself that if she would rather spend her days in the hot sun, elbow deep in car parts instead of doing paperwork in the air conditioning, well, that ain’t none of his concern. 

*

Turns out, Miles and Jin got assigned to the security team, too, and for the first time in his life, Sawyer has a normal job and a normal house and normal friends. 

The four of them slip into a routine pretty easily, and the rest of the month passes in a blur of learning the ropes and trying to fit in with the hippies. 

He and Juliet eat breakfast and dinner together everyday, heading off to their respective jobs during the day. He was kind of worried at first, living in a house just him and Juliet. The first few days were kind of tense, both of them being extra polite and courteous with each other, but before long they’d dropped all the pretense, acknowledged how weird it was, and started acting normal.

She can still be a pain in the ass—always on him pick his wet towels up off the floor and remember to put the cap on the toothpaste, stupid shit that seems completely ridiculous for her to get worked up about—but he doesn’t mind it too much. Truth is, it’s kind of nice to have someone to talk to at night, someone who’ll listen to him rant about Phil, someone who likes the same kind of books he does and doesn't mind when he reads the really good parts out loud.

On Saturdays, Jin and Miles come over and the four of them spend a few hours playing poker and getting drunk and teaching Jin English. He’s learned pretty much every curse word imaginable, but after a few weeks, Juliet insists they teach him some non-dirty stuff, too. 

It’s actually pretty damn exhausting, having a regular 9-to-5 job and being a productive member of society. Most nights he doesn’t have the energy to do more than sit on the couch with Juliet, the two of them reading and listening to the ancient record player in their living room. 

It ain't too bad though, the exhaustion, kind of refreshing really. After spending the past three months running for their lives, never knowing if they’d live to see another day, it’s kind of nice knowing exactly what’s going to happen, day in and day out. 

It’s not long before he stops spending every night laying awake on the couch, dwelling on jumping from that chopper and thinking about the smoke billowing from the freighter, and starts falling asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Even having a regular job ain’t so bad. The security post is actually a pretty sweet position, and it gives him plenty of opportunities to keep searching the Island for Locke and Claire and any of the other people from their camp. 

They never find nobody, which is frustrating, but Sawyer has about a million other things to deal with, between the Hostiles and some of the bozos he has to work with every day, and pretty soon, the grid search just becomes one more part of his daily routine, rather than something he spends every free minute obsessing over. 

**

** March **

The second week in March, Horace throws a giant party for Amy’s birthday. Pretty much everyone in the camp knows that he’s got a crush on her, so the turn-out’s pretty good, everyone coming out to support their fearless leader.

Sawyer and Juliet and Jin and Miles all make an appearance since they’re all trying to fit in and look more like productive members of Dharma and less like time travelers from the future.

Jin only sticks around for about half an hour before he slips out the side door, walking quietly across the barracks alone. Miles spends most of the night on the dance floor, trying to pick up hippie chicks and generally making a fool of himself. 

Sawyer and Juliet mostly just hang out at the bar, sipping disgustingly fruity drinks and laughing at Miles. Whenever she’s not looking, Sawyer finds himself staring at her. She’s dressed different tonight, wearing a skirt and a pair of strappy black shoes, and looks softer than normal, happier, too.

After about an hour of completely humiliating himself, Miles finally stumbles over to where they’re standing. 

“What’s with these chicks?” he complains, swiping Juliet’s glass and taking a drink. 

Juliet just rolls her eyes and Sawyer finds himself just staring at her again. She opens her mouth to say something to Miles, but just then one of the Dharma kids walks by, tripping a little right as he passes them. 

“Whoa there, killer,” Sawyer says, reaching out a hand to catch the little spaz from falling on his face. He doesn’t actually know the boy, but he’s seen him skulking around the school building a few times over the past few weeks, always shrinking away when anyone looks directly at him. 

“Thanks,” the kid says, not making eye contact with any of them and shuffling his feet a little. Sawyer’s about to ask him if he’s been drinking—tease him a little to see if the kid is capable of uttering more than one word at a time, when Roger, one of the janitors, walks up and grabs the kid roughly by the arm. “Sorry, Mr. LaFleur,” he says, giving the kid a little shake. Sawyer doesn’t know Roger all that well, just knows that he doesn’t like the guy. Something about him reminds him of his own father. 

“I hope Ben here wasn’t bothering you,” Roger continues, looking equal parts contrite and annoyed. He glares at the boy, squeezing his arm hard enough so his son flinches, and Sawyer’s so annoyed by this that it takes him a minute for him to put it all together. That this is Ben. Their Ben. The Others’ Ben. He glances at Juliet out the corner of his eye and she’s gone pale and quiet and he figures she’s probably figured it out too. 

Neither one of them say anything as Roger pulls Ben away, the two of them disappearing into the crowd of people. 

“What the hell’s with the two of you?” Miles says eventually, looking back and forth between Sawyer and Juliet. “Did you know that kid?”

“That kid was Benjamin Linus,” Juliet answers after a few seconds, her voice completely flat. 

“What?” Miles says, craning his neck to look for Ben, even though the kid is long gone. “You’re shitting me!”

Neither Juliet or Sawyer answer, just stare dully at each other while Miles stands on his tiptoes and scans the crowd for tiny Ben. In the background, Geronimo Jackson blares through the loud speakers and people are laughing and talking like everything is normal.

Finally, Sawyer shakes his head, like that will help any of this make more sense or seem more real. “Come on,” he says, draining his drink. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They end up back at Sawyer and Juliet’s house, the three of them listening to Johnny Cash records and getting drunk on Dharma rum. 

It’s been a weird night, between the party and meeting a ten-year-old version of the psychopath who trapped them all here thirty years in the future, but the three of them have a good time anyway, drinking and laughing and listening to the Man in Black sing about the shitty hand life has dealt him. 

*

Sawyer doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have because the next thing he knows, someone’s reaching out and shaking his shoulder to wake him up. 

He looks up and Juliet’s there, standing next to the couch and looking down at him. She’s changed out of the clothes she was wearing earlier and now she’s wearing this thin blue tank top and a pair of shorts, and he feels really disoriented. Maybe he drank more than he thought.

“Hey,” he says, his voice thick with sleep. 

“Miles is in my bed,” she says and, uh. What? Sawyer just looks at her, confused. “He’s drunk,” she explains, rolling her eyes a little. “Passed out. I can’t get him to move.”

“You want help movin’ him?” he asks, still feeling a little out of it. 

Juliet shakes her head and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Actually,” she says nodding at the couch, “I was thinking maybe I could just sleep out here with you.”

“Oh,” he says, and his stomach kind of flips. He’s definitely had too much to drink. “Yeah. Okay. Sure.”

He shifts over so that he’s is pressed up against the back of the couch and she gives him a soft smile, laying down on the couch next to him. Her hair smells really nice—not like the crappy Dharma shampoo they both use, but kind of sweet and flowery—and she moves around a little, getting comfortable. It’s really fucking distracting, truth be told, and Sawyer stays as still as possible, trying not to think about how nice it feels to have her pressed so close against him. 

Finally, after what feels like forever, she lies still. But after just a few minutes later, Sawyer’s right arm starts to feel like pins and needles and he realizes that he’s been holding his arm awkwardly above his head so she can get comfortable. He also realizes that there’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to sleep like this. He shifts around a little more, trying to find a place to put his arm, until finally he just gives up and drapes it across Juliet’s waist. 

She inhales sharply when his fingers brush against the bare skin of her stomach where her shirt’s pushed up a little.

“This okay?” Sawyer whispers, hoping it is since he ain’t sure he can sleep in any other position on the couch. It’s kind of a tight squeeze with them both on here. 

“Yeah,” she whispers back, so low so he barely hears her. “It’s good.” Her voice sounds a little shaky, but he feels her relax against him, pressing her body just a little bit closer to his. 

Right before he falls asleep, he wonders why she’s okay sleeping with him on this tiny couch, but wasn’t willing to share a giant bed with a drunk, passed out Miles.

*

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s got one hell of a headache. His body feels kind of cramped and stiff, but Juliet has turned around so that her face is kind of buried in his neck and it’s hard for him to focus on anything but that. Her hair is brushing against his face, tickling his nose, and he just lays there for a few minutes, trying to stay really still so he doesn’t wake her up. 

After a little while she starts to stir, making this kind of low humming noise in the back of her throat before moving a little so her head’s resting on the pillow next to his, laying so they’re face to face.

Sawyer’s not sure if she’s awake yet, though, because her eyes are still closed, so he whispers her name, quiet as he can. The corner of her mouth twitches a little and her eyes blink open so that she staring right at him, looking vulnerable and unguarded in a way that she never has before. 

Her eyes look even bluer when they’re this close and Sawyer knows he’s staring at her, that maybe he should look away or say something, but this feels surprisingly not-weird and, anyway, it’s Saturday and he’s kind of hungover, so whatever. 

They stay on the couch like that, face to face, drifting in and out of sleep for the next few hours. They’re finally woken up for good by a loud crash and the sound of Miles yelling “Shit!” from somewhere at the other end of the house. 

He opens his eyes and Juliet’s staring back at him, smiling a little and looking wide awake. “Guess it’s time to get up,” she says, her voice practically a whisper. Sawyer gets this inexplicable urge to reach out and hold her to him, but she rolls away from him before he gets a chance, putting her hands under her and pushing herself up. That whole part of his body where she’s not touching him anymore feels cold, which is insane because it’s about a thousand degrees in this house.

Sawyer watches as she swings her legs to the floor and leans forward, runs a hand through her hair. 

Her shirt rides up a little in the back, exposing a thin line of smooth, pale skin and he has this absurd urge to reach out, run his fingertips lightly along that line. She yawns and stretches, her shirt riding up even further, and he notices a mark on her lower back, red and raised, like a burn. 

She turns around and catches him staring, pulling her shirt down abruptly to cover the scar or whatever it is. 

When he makes eye contact with her, he expects her to look either amused or annoyed, but she just stares blankly back at him, like she’s not feeling anything at all.

**

** April **

After that, things seem to shift between them.

It’s nothing obvious, just little things, like how she’s taken to making his lunch every morning at the same time she makes hers or how they stop taking turns getting ready for bed in the bathroom every night, the two of them standing side by side at the sink as they brush their teeth. 

But it’s more a feeling than anything one particular thing he can point to, like they’d rather be around each other than alone. Sawyer ain’t quite sure how he feels about it, truth be told. He’s never been in a situation like this and it’s equal parts comforting and claustrophobic, like he doesn’t want to be anywhere but with her, but at the same time, doesn’t quite like the idea that he’s suddenly tied so closely to another person.

*

One night, after working a double shift at the security station, he comes home late to find her asleep on the couch, a dog-eared copy of _Ulysses_ resting on her chest. She’s been trying to get through that book for almost a month now, and he’s not sure what it says about her that she refuses to give up. 

Before he even really thinks about what he’s doing, he sits on the empty space next to her hip and gently lifts the book off of her chest. His fingertips lightly brush against her collarbone and her eyes blink open.

“Hey,” he says quietly, reaching out and brushing a strand of hair out of her face.

“Hi,” she says, her voice thick with sleep. She leans into his hand a little when he tucks the strand of hair behind her ear and Sawyer doesn’t quite know what’s going on between them, what all of this means. He realizes he’s just kind of staring at her, so moves his hand away and holds up the book.

“Not givin’ up, huh?” he teases, smiling at her a little.

“No way,” she says in mock offense, grinning back at him, her face breaking out into this giant smile and it’s times like these he feels ridiculously lucky that things shook out like this, the two of them sharing a house. “You'll see,” she adds. “It’ll all be worth it when I finally make it through.” 

He shakes his head at her and they sit like that for a few more minutes. Finally, she pushes herself into a sitting position, moving so that they're side by side, their hips pressed together. “I made dinner,” she says, nodding in the direction of the kitchen. “I saved you some. It’s in the fridge.” 

“Thanks,” he says, bumping her shoulder with his. She’s got sleep lines on her face from the couch, and Sawyer imagines reaching out, running his hand along one of them, seeing how she would react. 

She rubs a hand against her eyes and sighs. “Well,” she says, “Goodnight, James.” She leans over and kisses him softly, just on the cheek, nothing sexy or anything, but he feels kind of speechless after that, watching as she gets up and walks to the back of the house. 

He waits until he hears her door click closed before he kicks off his boots and starts unzipping his jumpsuit. He heads for the bathroom and turns on the shower. As he waits for the water to warm up, he finds himself thinking about the way her lips felt against his cheek, the feel of her skin against his hand, and, for some reason, about that mark on her back, the smooth, pale skin all around it. And if he spends a little more time than usual that night jerking off in the shower, he tries real hard not to think about why. 

*

When Sawyer comes home from the security station the first Friday in April, Juliet is all dressed up. Or, well, more dressed up than normal. She’s wearing jeans and this kind of floaty shirt and she’s got on makeup and her hair is curly and bouncy and pretty and she smells real good. Like flowers or something.

“Hot date?” he asks jokingly, kicking off his boots and unzipping his jumpsuit to the waist. 

She smiles but doesn’t say anything and he notices she’s not quite looking him in the eye and, what the fuck. “You ain’t serious,” he says. She tilts her head and kind of narrows her eyes and he realizes a second too late that he maybe sounded kinda hurt. “I mean,” he continues hastily, “not that I care or nothin’. Just—who the hell would you date around here?”

Turns out, the person she would date around here is some idiot from the motor pool. Andy or Alan or Alex or somethin’ equally idiotic. 

It’s 1974 and they’re trapped on a damn island of mystery and Juliet has a fucking date. What a fucking joke. They’re probably just going to be going to the cafeteria to eat dinner, Dharma macaroni or some shit. 

She’s rushing around the house trying to get ready, more frazzled than he’s ever seen her. He’s watched her kill a man and not look this nervous and the whole thing is just pissing him off for some reason. He’s just about to yell at her to calm the hell down when she calls out to him from the back of the house.

“Hey, James? Have you seen my shoes?” 

“They’re right next to damn door,” he says as she walks into the living room. He can’t believe she actually has a goddamn date. 

“Not my work boots, James,” she says, like this should be completely obvious. “Those black shoes I have? They’re kind of”—she makes a kind of fluttering motion with her hands—“strappy.” 

Yeah, he knows the shoes she’s talking about. She wore them to that stupid Dharma party, the one Horace had organized when he was still trying to hook up with Amy, the one where they met little Ben Linus. Not really a night he’d forget. But even with all that, what he most remembers is how long her legs looked. The way she’d put her hand on his arm and laughed every time she spotted Miles tryin’ to hit on a new recruit.

She’s staring at him, her head tilted to the side and a look of amusement on her face, and he realizes this little trip down memory lane is taking a little long. “I ain’t your damn maid,” he snaps, striding past her and grabbing a beer out of the fridge. 

Juliet shakes her head like she can’t believe she even bothered asking him. He pops the tab on his beer as she walks back in the direction of her bedroom.

“Found them!” she calls cheerfully, and he takes a long drink. 

She walks out to the front of the house, wearing her strappy black shoes and still smelling nice, and she smiles at him. “I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?” 

He ignores her and takes a drink, finishing the rest of his beer in one long pull as the door clicks shut. 

*

Juliet’s gone for just over two hours. While she’s out, Sawyer tries his hand at _The Fountainhead_. He never could make it through _Atlas Shrugged,_ but Juliet swore up and down that this was better. Still, after two hours he’s only about 30 pages in and each sentence feels even longer than the last. 

He does manage to polish off the rest of the six-pack though, so. Not a complete waste of a night. 

And, anyway, it ain’t his fault that he can’t focus. The book sucks is what it is. He thinks maybe Juliet was just fucking with him when she told him to read it, that he’d like it. He’s pretty much decided he’s done for the night—a decision that has absolutely nothing to do with him running out of beer, he tells himself—when the front door swings open. 

Juliet walks in, smiling at him and still smelling amazing and looking like she’s just been kissed. Not that he cares.

He barely spares her a glance as she walks over and sits next to him on the couch. Neither of them say anything for a while, and Sawyer refuses to admit to himself that he’s glad she’s back. That he might have missed her, since that’s completely idiotic, seeing as how it’s only been a few hours since he last saw her. Still, though, it makes him feel kind of better that she’s back, sitting next to him on their crappy little couch, close enough so that he can feel the warmth radiating off her body.

“So,” she asks eventually, bumping her shoulder against his and nodding at the dog-eared paperback he’s holding in his lap. “How do you like the book?”

He doesn’t bump back, just shrugs his shoulders a little. He really wishes there was more beer. “Roark’s a dick,” is all he says. 

She laughs. “Best description of the book that I’ve ever heard,” she says and Sawyer has to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling at her. 

“How was your date?” he asks despite himself, tapping the empty can against his knee. Jesus, why is he even pretending to care? And why the hell are they out of beer? 

“Eh,” she says and shrugs, like it doesn’t matter at all. 

Juliet leans her head against his shoulder and he looks down at the book in his lap, trying really hard focus on the story, not on how nice she smells, how soft her hair is.

*

She ends up hanging out with Andy a lot more over the next couple of weeks. 

Most nights she stays in and hangs out with Sawyer—they read and talk about books and bicker over what records to play—but every once and a while she gets dressed up, fixes her hair up all nice, and disappears for a few hours. 

When she comes home, she’s always smiling, always looking like she’s got some kind of secret that Sawyer ain’t ever gonna be privy to. It’s really fucking annoying and he’s not sure how much more of this he can take.

**

** May **

A few weeks later, Sawyer comes home one night and the house smells amazing. He walks into the kitchen and Juliet’s in there, stirring something on the stove. There are vegetables piled up on one counter and a bottle of Dharma merlot sitting in the middle of the table. 

“Somethin’ smells good,” he says, smiling a little at her when she turns and sees him. She doesn’t cook very often, but he always really likes when she does. 

“James,” she says, sounding a little frazzled. Like seeing him in the house he lives in is some kind of unexpected surprise. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” he shrugs, leaning against the wall and watching her. “What’s with the Betty Crocker routine?”

“Uh,” she says, and looks down at the stove, like whatever’s there is really, really interesting. “Andy’s coming over?” She says it like it’s a question, like she’s asking him if that’s what happening. “And, uh, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind hanging out at Jin and Miles’s place for a few hours.” 

Sawyer just stands there for a few minutes, because for whatever reason he wasn’t expecting this.

“James?” she says after he doesn’t say anything for a while. 

“Yeah,” he says, looking anywhere but at her. “Whatever.” 

Before she has a chance to respond, he turns around and walks back to the living room, starts throwing things into a bag. If she wants to make dinner and play housewife to some hippie asshole then, well, that ain’t none of his concern. She can do whatever the fuck she wants. He zips up the bag and she walks out into the dining room, setting two plates and some silverware on the table. 

“Jesus, James,” she says when she sees him. “How long are you planning on staying over there?” 

He doesn’t say anything and she laughs a little, which pisses him off even more despite the fact that there’s no malice in it. 

“Do you even have that many clothes?” she asks, nodding at the duffle bag he’s got slung over his shoulder.

And, okay, maybe he overdid it a little bit, but whatever. The jumpsuits take up a lot of room is all. He shrugs and drops down on the couch to put on his shoes. 

“He’s not staying over,” she says. “Just a few hours is all I’m asking.” 

“Well, I don’t want to come back and _interrupt_ anything, so I’ll just stay over there tonight,” he says, and he knows he’s being completely insane, but it’s just been a long day, is all and, whatever. She’s the one kicking him out of his own damn house. 

*

Sawyer goes over to Jin and Miles’s house, ignoring them when they ask why he’s staying with them, ignoring all of Miles’s annoying little asides about trouble with the missus, and grabbing a beer out of their fridge.

They end up getting pretty drunk and playing poker and he just sucks. Hell, even Jin is beating him and Jin’s like the worst poker player of all time. Finally, after an hour of getting his ass handed to him, he goes out and sits on the porch and it ain’t like he’s looking to spy or nothing, but his and Juliet’s house is right across the courtyard, so. 

He can see their outlines behind the curtains, and right now they’re just sitting at the table, which is good he guesses. A few minutes later, they both get up and move somewhere else, and now he can’t see a damn thing. He gets up and carries his beer to the other side of the porch, but the view’s no better over there. 

Jesus, he hopes they didn’t go to her bedroom, which is kind of an absurd thing to think but he’s drunk, so whatever. 

Twenty minutes later, he’s pretty much convinced himself that Juliet’s going to move out of his house and in with that little bastard Andy—not that Sawyer cares, mind you, just it’s going to be a pain in the ass to have to break in a new roommate and, shit, he’s a grown-ass man, he shouldn’t even have to have a roommate and he’s gonna tell Horace that first thing in the damn morning, he decides—when the front door to his house opens, light spilling out across their front porch. 

Sawyer almost drops his beer, but then leans back a little into the shadows and watches as Andy walks out, heads straight across the barracks towards his place. Juliet just stands there in the doorway, watching him go. Sawyer hopes like hell it’s dark enough so that she doesn’t see him, but she looks over at him a few seconds later and he’s pretty much caught. He thinks she’s gonna be mad, but she gives him a little wave and he waves back and then she’s shutting the door and walking over to him. 

He gets up and walks to the edge of the porch, meeting her on the steps. “Hey,” he says, smiling a little despite himself. 

“Hi,” she says and kind of half smiles back at him. “Mind if I join you?” 

He raises his eyebrows at her and shakes his head, motioning with his beer for her to sit down. They sit next to each other on the top step of porch, and Sawyer waits for her to say something. After a couple of minutes she reaches over for his beer and he hands it to her, watching as she takes a long drink, the way her throat moves when she swallows. Jesus. He needs to get a grip. 

“We broke up,” she says, after a few minutes, handing him back his beer and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He can tell she feels kind of embarrassed about the whole thing and he wants to ask what happened, but he can’t really think of what to say exactly, so he takes a drink, forces himself not to look as happy and relieved as he feels. 

“I’m sorry,” he says eventually, just to say something. She glances at him sidelong and makes this sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. She looks like she always does, not like she’s been crying or anything, but this is probably the saddest he’s ever seen her. Which is saying something.

He keeps quiet after that, waiting for her to make the next move. This whole situation has been incredibly strange and he’s not even sure what’s going on right now. After a few minutes, she leans over so that her head is resting on his shoulder, and she sighs in this way that makes his whole body kind of vibrate. She’s just so close to him right now, and this past month has been so fucked up and he’s just missed her a lot, even though they’ve been living in the same house. So when he reaches out and puts his hand on her knee, he’s not all that surprised when she lays her hand on top of his, threading their fingers together. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and he wonders why the two of them are apologizing to each other when neither of them’s done anything wrong.

“Hey,” he says softly and she leans into him. “It’s okay. You ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry for.” Something about this whole situation makes him feel kind of awful, even though he doesn’t know why. They sit like that for a few minutes and her hair brushes against his face and he thinks back to that night a few months ago, when they slept together on the couch, how nice it felt, being that close to her. 

He makes a decision then, one he’s been thinking ever since then but has been too chickenshit to follow through on. He puts his hand under Juliet’s chin and nudges her up until she’s looking right at him, and then he leans over and kisses her. 

At first, he’s gentle, hesitant even, which he realizes is kind of weird, but he’s still a little worried that she’s going to push him away, tell him to fuck off. 

But she doesn’t, just opens her mouth under his and kisses him back. It’s pretty much exactly like he thought it would be, she tastes exactly like he’d imagined. He slides his hand up under her shirt, grazes her breast with his thumb and she inhales sharply and pulls back a little, looking around like she’s got no idea how she ended up here.

“James,” she says. She’s breathing heavy, her lips red and wet and, Jesus. He moves in to kiss her again, but she puts a hand on his chest and holds him back. He looks up at her then, worried for the first time that maybe she doesn’t want this. But she’s smiling when she leans in whispers against his ear, “Let’s go home.” 

They make it back to their place in record time—not that it normally takes all that long to walk the fifty feet between Jin and Miles’s house and theirs—but tonight it’s like they’re moving at warp speed.

When the make it inside, Sawyer gently pushes Juliet up against the door, pressing his body flush against hers, and he's hard against her leg. She’s still kissing him—they’ve been practically locked at the mouth since they were out on the porch—and she’s doing this thing with her tongue that’s making him feel kind of crazy. When she reaches down and cups her hand around him through his jeans he actually moans, which would be embarrassing if he actually thought too much about it. But he doesn’t, just fists a hand in her hair as his hips jerk against her hand, and he can feel her smirk against his mouth. 

He pulls back a little, and looks at her, her eyes have gone dark and she runs her tongue along her lower lip, watching him watch her. He reaches down, and puts his hands under her ass, lifting her up so that she can wrap her legs around him. He carries her over to the couch like that, and she’s started kissing his neck, running her tongue along the pulse point below his ear and nipping at his neck with blunt teeth. 

He lays back on the couch so she’s straddling him and he helps her push her shirt over her head, and, God, she’s beautiful. She leans back down and undoes the button on his jeans and Jesus, he ain’t sure how much longer he’s going to be able to control himself. 

Finally, they’re both naked and he keeps his eyes open, watching her face as he slides inside of her. She gasps and bites down on her lip, reaching out and bracing her hands against his arms. When she opens her eyes and sees him staring at her, she smiles and leans down to kiss him, a little desperately and Sawyer guesses maybe she’s been wanting this as badly as he has. 

Juliet rocks against him, grinding her hips against his in a rhythm that’s amazing and he has to close his eyes, think of something else, so he doesn’t come right then. After just a few minutes, he feels her speed up, the rhythm getting faster and more desperate and when she comes, she gasps his name. It’s all he needs, his whole body tensing and his hips jerking uncontrollably against hers. 

She collapses on top of him, breathing hard, and he runs his hand through her hair, pressing a soft kiss against her temple, this feeling in his chest like he’s happier than he’s ever been.

**

** June **

Over the next few weeks, they spend almost all of their free time in bed, their nights and weekends just a whirlwind of sex and being together. It surprises Sawyer, how easy it is, how for the first time in his whole life, things are damn near perfect. 

It’s almost embarrassing, how happy he is, how this one little thing has made him feel like a completely different person. 

“What’s with you?” Miles asks one morning, walking into the security station and heading straight for the coffee machine.

“What’s with me what?” Sawyer says, trying his damnedest to sound gruff and pissed off but for some reason he can’t quite pull it off. It maybe has something to do with the fact that he and Juliet were up half the night and then he woke up this morning to her mouth on him under the covers, but he sure as hell ain’t gonna say as much to Miles.

“You’ve got a giant smile on your face,” Miles says, carrying his cup of coffee over and staring up at the screens of the TVs. “You catch Carrie sunbathing topless on one of the monitors again?” 

“No,” Sawyer scoffs. “And, besides, I ain’t smiling, so. Shut the hell up, Banzai,” he says, which is maybe an overreaction but whatever. Miles can be really fucking annoying, is all.

“O-kay,” Miles says, drawing out the word and holding up his hands in an I surrender gesture, looking at Sawyer sidelong. 

They just sit quietly after that, drinking their coffee and staring up at the security monitors. A few minutes later, the door to the station opens and Juliet walks in, looking way more attractive in her shapeless Dharma jumpsuit than anyone has any right to.

Right away, Sawyer feels himself start to smile again and he just hopes like hell that Miles doesn’t notice and start up again. 

“Hey guys,” she says, glancing quickly at Sawyer before focusing on Miles. Sawyer takes a step closer to her and she shifts her gaze back to him, something like a warning in her eyes. 

“Well hey there, Blondie,” Sawyer says, almost absurdly happy to see her unexpectedly like this, thinking about her mouth on him this morning.

“Horace wanted me to pick up the keys to a van that needs to be serviced,” she says, still giving Sawyer that look. 

He hands her the keys, holding her fingers in his hand a little longer than necessary as she takes them from him. He starts to step closer to her, getting right into her personal space and running his thumb lightly against the back of her hand, but she pulls her hand back quickly, almost flinching away from him. 

“Thanks,” she says, her voice flat. “I’ll get these back to you as soon as I can.”

She’s not looking at Sawyer as she pockets the keys and turns to leave and he wonders what the hell he could possibly have done wrong in the past two hours.

*

There’s a false alarm with the Hostiles half an hour before Sawyer’s shift is supposed to end, so he gets home couple of hours late that night. He’s spent most of the day feeling worried, wondering what he did to piss Juliet off this morning. By the time he walks through the door, he still ain’t got a clue what he did, and he hopes like hell it’s not something too major. 

When he gets inside Juliet’s folding laundry in the living room, her back to the door, but she turns and smiles brightly when she sees him.

“Hey,” she says, walking over to him and draping her arms around his neck.

“Hey yourself,” he says, confused. She’s still smiling at him and it’s like this morning never happened. “What was the deal with you this morning down at the station?” he asks, trying to get his bearings with the whole thing.

She makes a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat and kisses him deeply, sliding her tongue into his mouth and wrapping her arms around his back. They just stay like that for a while, making out in the middle of their living room, but after a few minutes he pulls back, conscious of the fact that she hasn’t answered him. “Juliet,” he says again, looking her right in the eye so she knows he ain’t just playing around with this.

She stares back and he can tell she’s sizing him up, trying to decide if he’s going to let this go. Eventually, she sighs and drops her eyes. “James,” she says, stepping back a little so that they’re not touching any more. “It’s just, maybe we should just keep this between us right now.”

He’d like to say he’s surprised, but the truth is, this is pretty much par for the course for him. Juliet’s giving him this look, like she’s expecting an argument. Which, whatever, she’s not going to get one from him. He don’t quite understand why she wants to keep it a secret, but if that’s what she wants, then fine. But even so, he can’t help but think of Kate, about how she’d sneak in to his tent late at night after everyone was sleeping and then leave before dawn. 

“Okay,” he finally says, and the look of relief on her face makes his stomach drop. But then she leans over and kisses him again, biting a little on his lower lip, and he picks her up and carries her into the bedroom. 

They have sex on the bed, in the fading evening light and, afterwards, they lay quietly next to each other. Sawyer traces invisible patterns on her back with his fingertips and he can’t stop thinking about their conversation from earlier. 

He just, he doesn’t understand why she wants to keep it a secret, and he can’t help but think that maybe she’s a little ashamed of him. It makes him feel kind of terrible and part of him wants to ask her about it, actually have a conversation. But the other part of him, the smarter part of him, knows it’s probably best to just let it be, go with it rather than fuck up everything they’ve managed to build over the last few weeks. Besides, other than that, things are really good, and the truth is, he’s happier now than he has been pretty much his whole life. 

So he doesn’t say anything to her, just runs his fingers lightly down her back, over the mark that she still hasn’t told him about, and feels himself drift off to sleep.

**

** July **

Keeping their relationship a secret is surprisingly easy, for the most part. They only have one really close call, when Jin, of all people, almost catches them in the act. 

They’re down in the security office one morning, at the tail-end of Sawyer’s graveyard shift, so early that pretty much everyone else in the barracks is still asleep. Juliet actually stayed with him most of the night, which is a total breach of security protocol, but Sawyer figures what Horace don’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, it’s a hell of a lot easier for Sawyer to stay awake all night when he’s got Juliet around to keep him entertained. 

Juliet’s supposed to be at the motor pool in less than an hour, and she still has to go home and shower, so they’re trying to make good use of these last few minutes together. Sawyer’s got her pressed up against the desk, both of them pretty much completely naked, she’s running her tongue along the hollow in his throat and God, he’s so close, when the door rattles, someone trying to turn the locked handle. 

They spring apart quick as anything, throwing on their clothes and trying to look like they weren’t just having sex on the desk amid all the time cards and security check paperwork.

When Sawyer unlocks the door, Jin’s there, looking confused and a little worried. The door to the security office is never supposed to be locked, Sawyer knows, but they figured it was probably a smart move considering their plans for the night. Turns out they were right, even though now they’re gonna have to think of an excuse pretty damn quick. 

“Hey man,” Sawyer says, realizing he sounds really out of breath. He clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair, trying to get himself under control. “What’s up?”

Jin just looks at Sawyer, then glances into the room behind him, to where Juliet is staring intently at the monitors—the monitors that are pretty much just showing an empty early morning Dharmaville—her face flushed, and a few pieces of hair sticking to her neck with sweat. By the time he looks back to Sawyer, his confusion has transformed to amusement. Sawyer looks at the ground and clears his throat again and, damn, this is embarrassing. Especially since Jin is actually smirking right now. Sawyer didn’t even know Jin could smirk, but apparently he’s really great at it. 

“Keys?” Jin says, the corner of his mouth still turned up a little, the smirk almost becoming a full-blown smile. 

“Um,” Sawyer says, not knowing what the hell Jin’s talking about. “What?”

“Van,” Jin says, sounding amused. “Grid search?” 

Shit. Sawyer can’t believe he forgot about that, the early morning grid searches Miles and Jin are doing this week. He’s just thankful Jin came for the keys instead of Miles. That would have been a disaster. 

Or, more of a disaster than it already is, considering he ain't got a clue where those damn keys are and Jin’s standing there looking like the cat that just swallowed the damn canary. He pats the pockets of his jumpsuit, trying to remember where he put them, but he’s not thinking clearly, like the blood ain’t quite made it back up to his brain yet.

“Keys?” Jin says again, looking like he’s enjoying this whole situation way too much. Sawyer narrows his eyes at him and takes a step forward, not really sure what he’s planning to do—it’s not like he’s going to hit Jin, for Christ’s sake—when Juliet walks up next to him, puts her hand lightly on his arm. He feels himself relax a little, the tension draining out of him. 

“Here you, go,” she says, holding out a set of keys to Jin. “I had just stopped by to drop them off.” Her voice is completely steady, the lie smooth and easy, and she doesn’t sound out of breath at all, even though her face is still a little flushed. 

Jin takes the keys with a quick nod of thanks, that stupid smile still on his face, then turns around and makes his way back up the stairs and outside to start the daily search for Locke and the others. 

“Close call,” Sawyer says sheepishly, when the door finally clicks closed. He’s watching Juliet carefully, a little worried about how she’s going to react to Jin practically walking in on them having sex. He expects her to be annoyed, but she mostly just looks embarrassed, maybe even a little amused. 

When she catches him watching, she quirks an eyebrow at him. “At least he probably won’t be able to tell anybody,” she says, smiling a little.

Sawyer grins at her and shakes his head, somehow both relieved and annoyed that she can joke around about this whole sneaking around thing. He walks back over to where she is and leans in to kiss her again, but she pulls away before he can and he gets this horrible feeling in his chest, like maybe this is it. But she just nods up at the clock.

"I better get going," she says, smiling a little. He nods and she kisses him gently on the cheek. "I'll see you tonight," she tells him.

When she gets to the top of the stairs, she turns around and gives him a little wave. He waves back and, as he watches the door close behind her, all he can think about is how she's gonna react if Jin decides to tell anyone what he saw. 

*

When they show up at Jin and Miles’s house the next night for their weekly poker game, Sawyer braces himself for the teasing he’s sure he and Juliet are gonna get. He doubts Jin would rat them out to anyone else, but he figures for he’s told Miles for sure.

But when they get there and sit around the kitchen table just like always, Miles doesn’t say a word about it or crack any jokes. Hell, there ain’t even a wink or an obscene hand gesture. He guesses means that Jin didn’t say nothing to him, which truth be told, Sawyer thinks is a little strange. It’s like everyone but him gets the need to keep it a big damn mystery. 

Even so, he spends most of the game glancing nervously at Jin and Miles, waiting for one of them to say something about it. He’s not paying much attention at all to the game, and he’s already in the hole almost ten bucks. It’s the first time he’s ever really been grateful that they only play for change because otherwise he’d be completely broke by the end of the night. 

He glances down at the cards Juliet just handed him and, shit, he’s got nothin’. He rubs his hand across his face, and reaches for his beer. It’s almost empty and he finishes it in one drink, setting it back down on the table with a light clank.

Across the table, Miles groans and drops his cards face down on the table in front of him. “Fuck,” he says, shaking his head. He glares at Juliet, like she’s somehow managing to stack the deck against him.

“What?” Juliet asks, looking way too innocent. Sawyer narrows his eyes at her, wondering if maybe she is cheating. The pile of coins in front of her is suspiciously large.

Miles doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head a little and picks his cards back up, rearranging them with a sigh. They play out the hand, Sawyer folding first. When Juliet wins again, Miles practically throws his cards at her and Sawyer would find this whole thing way more amusing if he weren't sucking so badly himself.

“Hey Juliet,” Miles says, scooping up the new hand of cards she just dealt him and sounding annoyed. “Would you mind taking a break from systematically stealing my weekly pay to grab some more beers out of the fridge?” 

Juliet finishes stacking her newly-won coins and smiles sweetly at him. “Not at all,” she says, laughing a little when Miles flips her off. She heads over to the fridge and kneels down to grab another six-pack of beer, her shirt riding up a little in the back to expose a thin line of smooth, pale skin. Sawyer doesn’t even realize he’s staring until he hears Miles start talking beside him. “Damn, Juliet,” he says, nodding at her lower back. “What the hell is that?” 

Juliet’s hand flies to her back, to that damn mark, and she stares at Miles over her shoulder. Sawyer just shakes his head and looks down at his cards because he knows this ain’t going nowhere and Miles is most likely about to get told off. 

But then Juliet’s shrugging and answering him. “Just a little gift from Ben,” she says lightly, like it’s no big deal.

“A gift from Ben?” Miles says, confused. “What does that mean?”

Juliet stands up and puts the beer on the table, pulling a can off the plastic ring and popping the tab. “I did something he didn't approve of,” she says, taking a drink and sitting back down. “This," she gestures vaguely at her back, "was my punishment.” The whole time she’s talking she’s looking at Miles, at her cards, at some blank space on the wall, anywhere but at Sawyer. 

Miles shakes his head, the way he always does when he hears some crazy new thing about being on this island, but he doesn’t say anything else and Sawyer hopes that he'll just drop it. They can change the subject and talk about something else and then Juliet can tell Sawyer about it when they get home, when they’re away from Miles and Jin and it doesn’t feel like she’s trying to hide something from him or avoid having an actual conversation about it. 

But of course Miles doesn't drop it, because not dropping things is pretty much the only thing the little bastard is good at. “So what’d you do?” he asks, rearranging the cards in his hand, and signaling for Juliet to give him three new ones.

She takes three cards off the top of the stack and hands them to Miles, face-down. “I killed someone,” she says. Her voice sounds almost casual, but Sawyer knows her well enough by now to hear the edge to it, the way her tone goes kind of flat when she’s really upset.

That seems to get Miles’s attention, since he finally looks up from his cards. “Who’d you kill?” he asks, watching her carefully.

Juliet shrugs and throws a couple of coins into the pot, calling Jin’s raise from before. “A man named Danny.” 

And it hits Sawyer then, what she’s talking about, who she killed, why she killed him. And, Jesus, sometimes he hates this fucking island so much he can’t think straight. He rubs his forehead and looks over at Juliet. She glances up and catches him staring at her, and he expects her to do something, somehow acknowledge all the shit that’s running silently between them right now. But she doesn’t do anything, just looks back down at her cards, like she couldn’t care less that she killed someone because of him and Kate and then got fucking branded for it. 

Sawyer clenches his teeth, angrier at her than he can ever really remember being. He can feel Jin looking at him out of the corner of his eye and he knows he needs to calm down and act normal, to keep up the stupid fucking charade that he and Juliet are just roommates and friends, that there’s no reason he should be so mad about this. But he can’t seem to force himself to calm down, just keeps getting more and more pissed off as he watches Juliet take another drink of her beer. 

“James,” she says, looking directly at him for the first time since this whole conversation started. He just stares back at her, waiting for her to say something, apologize for doing this here, doing this now, apologize for not telling him sooner. But instead she just nods at the cards he’s holding. “It’s your bet.”

And that’s it, Sawyer can’t take it anymore, the way she can just pretend like all the things that have happened between them—hell, all the things that are happening between them—don’t affect her at all. He drops his cards and gets up quick, so abruptly that his chair tips over and clatters to the floor. 

“Jesus, Jim,” Miles says, looking at him over his cards like he’s insane. “What the hell?”

Sawyer doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at him, just storms outside, the door slamming shut behind him. He can hear Miles still talking behind him, asking Juliet and Jin what Sawyer’s problem is. 

By the time he makes it to his and Juliet’s house, he expects her to be right behind him, to have followed him. But when he finally turns around, she’s not there and the barracks are completely deserted. 

He stands in the open doorway for a few minutes, getting angrier by the second, thinking of all the things he’s going to say to her when she finally shows up. 

When Juliet gets home that night, he’s in already bed, just laying in the dark and starting up at the ceiling. By the time she finally stumbles into their bedroom, he considers just pretending to be asleep, letting this go, pushing it back with everything else they never talk about. Besides, now Sawyer knows the whole story—or some of the story, at least—knows that it was his fault, somehow, something he fucked up even though he didn’t actually do anything wrong. And that’s what really gets him, that for once in his life, he didn’t actually do anything, but apparently that doesn't matter. Him just existing was enough to hurt her. So he thinks about dropping it, since it's clear she ain't too interested in sharing and he figures maybe he's done enough already.

But after just a few minutes, he clicks on the lamp next to the bed and rolls over to face her. Her eyes get wide and he can tell she’s surprised he’s awake, and he figures she probably waited this long to come home so she wouldn’t have to deal with him. 

He wants to fight with her, to say something that will make her feel as terrible as she made him feel tonight, to force her to talk about it. But when she looks at him with her sad blue eyes, the anger just kind of evaporates, leaving him feeling deflated and depressed. 

“James,” she sighs, rubbing a hand across her forehead. Her breath smells a little like beer, and he realizes that she’s probably drunk. Somehow, that makes him feel even worse. The only two other times he can remember her drinking that much are when the freighter exploded and then when they met Ben at that party. And now tonight when she had to think about all the ways him being in her life has made her even more miserable.

“You should have told me,” he says after a few minutes, furious with himself for sounding so hurt, for letting her see how much this bothers him.

Juliet just looks at him and he’s got no idea what she’s thinking right now. She blinks at him and sighs, sounding as exhausted as he feels. “You never asked.” 

And, well, there ain’t much he can say to that, so he just closes his eyes and thinks about all the ways things are falling apart, how he never knows what he’s supposed to do or say to get her to talk to him. 

After a few minutes, he moves over so that he's pressed against her back, her body solid and comforting against him. Eventually they fall asleep like that, the light still burning brightly behind them.

**

** August **

The first week in August, Horace calls Sawyer in to his office for a meeting, looking serious and somber.

When Sawyer gets inside, Horace closes the door behind them and motions for Sawyer to have a seat.

“What’s up, boss?” Sawyer asks nervously, wondering what the hell this is about, what he possibly could have done wrong.

Horace doesn’t say anything at first, just sorts through some papers on his desk and Sawyer’s stomach drops. Finally, after what seems like forever, Horace looks at him and says, “How long have you been here now, Jim?”

“Uh,” Sawyer says, trying to stall a little. “About eight months now, I guess.”

“Eight months,” Horace repeats thoughtfully. “That’s about what I figured.” Horace doesn’t say anything else and Sawyer just waits, still trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Well, Jim,” he says eventually. “Here’s the thing. You know Bill, right? Our Head of Security?”

Sawyer just nods, mustering every ounce of self-control not to roll his eyes. Of course he knows who Bill is--the man’s been his damn boss for eight months.

“Well,” Horace says, “Bill’s planning on leaving us next week and that’s got me in a bit of a bind.”

“Oh,” Sawyer says, even more confused. He had no idea Bill was leaving and he ain’t got a clue what this has to do with him.

“How would you feel about taking his place?” Horace asks and, what? Sawyer just stares at him dumbly for a minute, no idea what to say. Horace must take this as a bad sign, because he gets up from his chair and walks around to where Sawyer’s sitting. He leans on the edge of his desk and puts his hand on Sawyer’s shoulder. “I know it’s a lot to ask,” he says. “But I think you’re the man for the job.” 

”Okay,” Sawyer hears himself say. He knows he should probably talk this over with Juliet, maybe think on it some more, but it’s just--Head of Security. He’d be in charge of the whole damn place. It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up. 

Horace grins at him and claps him on the shoulder. “Excellent,” he says, reaching out to shake Sawyer’s hand. “Congratulations, Jim. And thank you. I really do appreciate it.”

Sawyer smiles back at him, feeling almost embarrassingly proud of himself, his mind already racing with all the possibilities for expanding his searches of the island, maybe finally finding some more of his people.

*

When he gets home that night, Juliet’s laying on the couch reading Catch-22. She looks up at him and smiles when he walks through the door and he gets that feeling he always does when he sees her these days, like everything in his life is exactly the way it should be. 

He kicks off his boots right inside the door and walks over to her. She sets the book down on the floor next to her and moves over so there’s room on the couch for him. 

He lays down beside her, the couch still warm from her body. Sawyer moves so they’re face to face and Juliet reaches up and tucks a piece of hair behind his ear. “Hey,” she says, smiling at him, and then kissing him, long and slow. They just lay on the couch like that, making out like teenagers for a while, until he pulls back a little, leaning forward so their foreheads are resting against each other. 

“What was that for?” he says. Not that he’s complaining, but it’s not like she normally jumps him the second he walks through the door. 

“I heard about your meeting with Horace,” she says, smiling at him. “I’m proud of you, James.” 

He looks down, suddenly embarrassed for some reason. She leans forward and kisses him again, reaching out to pull down the zipper on his jumpsuit, pushing the thick fabric down off his shoulders. 

He runs his hands under her shirt, running his fingertips over the soft skin on her stomach, on her breasts, on her sides, touching her everywhere he can. When his fingers brush against the mark on her back, she stop kissing him, pulls back far enough so she can look him in the eye. 

She doesn’t say anything at first and he wonders if he should move his hand, back to where her skin is smooth and unmarked, back to places that aren’t reminders of where knowing him has gotten her. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, eventually, her voice low and serious. He strokes his thumb lightly over the red, raised skin and she bites on her lower lip, looks like she might cry. “I should have told you,” she says. “I just—I didn’t know what to say.”

Sawyer’s not sure how to respond to that, so he just kisses her again, soft and slow, trying to show her that he ain’t mad about it any more. He feels her smile against his mouth, and he figures that she gets it, that things are going to be okay. They shift around so that he’s laying on top of her, and he reaches down to help her push her shirt over her head.

They have sex on the couch, slow and gentle, and he feels closer to her than he ever has before.

*

A couple of days later, Horace asks Sawyer if he’d mind going out with him in a few days to talk to Richard to negotiate some changes to the contract Dharma has with the Hostiles, now that he’s agreed to take on more responsibility and all. Sawyer agrees without even thinking about it, realizing it’ll be one the few chances he’s gonna get to search some of the off-limits parts of the island.

The day they’re supposed to go out and meet the Hostiles, Horace gets sick with the flu. When Sawyer stops by his house that morning, the guy can barely stand and he looks terrible, shaky and green. 

It’s supposed to be an easy visit—some minor issue about one of the boundaries that Horace doesn’t think Richard will mind—nothing that should take any more than a few hours, everybody home by dinner time. It’s pretty much the perfect opportunity to do a search of the parts of the island they normally don’t have access to, so Sawyer volunteers to go without him, bringing Jin and Miles as backup.

For the first few hours, everything goes smoothly. But when they’re about a mile into Hostile territory, they’re suddenly surrounded, a circle of men with guns standing all around them. 

“We’re here to see Richard,” Sawyer says, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. He nods at Miles and Jin, the two of them doing the same.

“Where’s Horace?” one of the guys calls, cocking his rifle and aiming right at Sawyer. 

“Horace ain’t feelin’ well today, boys,” Sawyer says confidently, even though, truth be told, he’s a little nervous. He really hopes Alpert shows up soon; these guys don’t look like they’re gonna take too kindly to a change in their routine. 

The three of them end up being marched straight into the heart of Hostile-town, hands tied in front of them with rope. Richard is nowhere to be found and by the time it gets dark, Sawyer starts getting nervous. Miles won’t quit runnin’ his mouth and Jin keeps shooting him these worried looks and, for the first time, Sawyer regrets getting that damn promotion. 

They spend the night sleeping on the ground. Or, at least, Jin and Miles sleep on the ground. Sawyer just lays there, staring up at the moldy canvas of the tent above him, this horrible feeling in his gut like if anything happens to them, it’s all on him. He never should have accepted that fucking promotion, he knows. He ain’t cut out for leading, this proves that as much as anything. 

He tosses and turns for most of the night, figuring he’ll never actually fall asleep with worrying. Plus, he misses Juliet. Like physically misses her. It’s been months since he’s actually slept alone and no matter which way he turns he feels uncomfortable and kind of cold. The last thing he thinks before he finally manages to drift off to sleep, right before dawn, is that he hopes she ain’t too worried about him.

They spend the next two days pretty much exactly like that, tied up and waiting. Practically every minute that passes makes Sawyer feel worse and worse and he can't believe that his first real act as Head of Security was to get him and his friends captured. It's such a fucking disaster.

Richard finally shows up around noon the third day, walking out of the jungle looking as cool and clean as if he just stepped off the cover of GQ.

It takes everything in Sawyer not to charge the guy when he sees him, but seeing as how his hands are still tied and he's got at least three guns pointed at him, he decides attacking the king of the Hostiles probably won't be too smart a move. So instead, he just smirks at Richard once he's close enough to talk to him. "Well hey there, Rick," he says. "Nice of you to finally grace us with your presence."

"Horace sent you out here alone?" Richard asks, apparently not in the mood for banter. His eyes go to the jumpsuit Sawyer's wearing, his new one that says LaFleur, Head of Security. "Well," he says sounding surprised. "It looks like you're fitting in quite nicely with the Dharma Initiave."

Sawyer sighs. "Like I told your friends," he says, "I just need to go over this contract with you and then we can be on our way."

Alpert just stares at him for a few beats before waving for his men to drop their guns. "Okay," he says. "Let's see the contract."

Once they get untied and start going over the contract, the whole thing goes smoothly, and they’re on their way—revised contract in hand—in almost no time. As they trudge back through the jungle, Sawyer swears he’s never going to accept another damn promotion as long as he lives. 

When they finally make it back to the barracks, Juliet’s waiting on their porch, sitting next to Amy, chewing on her thumbnail, her eyes a little unfocused. There are dark circles under her eyes and she looks completely exhausted, like she hasn't slept in days. It takes a few seconds before Juliet sees them and, when she does, she practically launches herself off the porch and runs right up to Sawyer, throwing her arms around him and hugging him hard. 

She buries her face in his neck and he thinks she might be crying, the way she taking these deep shuddering breaths. “I thought,” she says, sounding kind of frantic. “I thought…” And she doesn’t have to say what she thought, the way she’s holding on to him is enough for him to figure it out. It makes him feel both terrible and wonderful at the same time, realizing how upset she was when she thought something happened to him.

“Hey,” he says, smoothing a hand down her hair and hugging her to him. She’s holding on to him almost desperately, in this way that makes his chest feel kind of tight. Her breath is warm against his neck and feels like she’s shaking, just a little bit. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, holding her as close as he can. He’s waiting for her to realize where they are, who all’s around them, and push him back like there’s nothing at all between them.

But when she pulls back, she doesn’t push him away like he expects her to. Instead, she kisses him, right there in front of Jin and Miles and Amy and everyone else. 

She kisses him like she’s not ashamed of him at all, like being with him is all she’s ever wanted. Sawyer kisses her back, and she’s warm and comforting against him, and he almost can’t believe how good it feels, not having to hide this anymore.

**

** September **

On September 22, both he and Juliet call in sick to work. They spend most of the morning in bed, having the kind of sex that’s desperate and rough, the kind of sex they had right after they started sleeping together and were still sneaking around and Sawyer felt like things could just end between them at any second. It ain’t a bad way to start his day, truth be told, but it still makes him feel kind of tense and off-balance.

By noon, Juliet’s up and showered, acting like a completely different person than she was this morning. By the time Sawyer finally drags himself into the shower and out in to the front of the house, Juliet’s making lunch. And she’s not just making sandwiches or soup, there are vegetables chopped on the counter and something that smells amazing bubbling in a pot on the stove. 

“What’s all this?” he asks, grabbing a slice of green pepper from the counter and popping it in his mouth.

“Nothing,” she shrugs, stirring whatever’s on the stove with a wooden spoon. “Just felt like cooking.” 

Sawyer walks over and stands next to her, leaning his hip against the counter and watching her cook. She smiles at him when he gets close, but it’s the kind of smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and he realizes, not for the first time, that he’s not really sure what he’s supposed to do, what he’s supposed to say in situations like this. So he ends up not saying anything, just stands there next to her, hoping that him being there is enough.

“I’ve been here for four years,” she says, kind of out of the blue. It’s the first time either one of them has actually mentioned what day it is. 

Juliet looks over at him, this look on her face like it’s just now hitting her, and he knows he’s gotta say something. It’s hard for him to believe that he’s only been here a year--it seems like a lot longer than that, what with the time travel and all. He can’t even imagine how it must feel for Juliet after four years stuck on this rock. The truth is, just thinking about how long she’s been here makes him nervous, like every new day could be the tipping point, the one that makes her reserve herself a spot on the next sub and just leave forever.

“I know,” he finally says. He reaches out, puts his hand on the back of her neck. She steps away from the stove and puts her arms around him, and they just stand like that for a while, not saying anything else about it.

*

By the time it’s dark, both he and Juliet are feeling a little antsy. They haven’t left the house all day so they finally just decide to take a walk around the barracks together, since it’s almost midnight and there ain’t much else to do. 

They somehow end up on the little Dharma playground, sitting next to each other on the swings and staring quietly out into the deserted compound.

“I think about it sometimes,” she says after a while, swaying a little on the swing, scuffing her feet in the dirt. “Leaving, I mean.”

Sawyer looks over at her and his stomach sinks. She just looks so sad and wistful, like getting out of here is the best thing she can possibly imagine. He gets up and walks over to her, kneeling down so that they’re face to face. He reaches up to cup her face with his left hand, brushing his thumb across her cheek. 

He’s got no idea what he should say right now. It’s not that he doesn’t want her to be happy, but he just can’t imagine being here without her, what that would feel like. And he’s just…he’s not ready to leave yet, to give up on everything from before, to just throw in the towel on ever getting back to the places they actually belong. 

They just sit there like that for a little while, looking at each other sadly, both of them knowing there’s not really any way to fix this, no solution where they’ll live happily ever after. 

After a few minutes, Sawyer hears footsteps in the grass behind him and Juliet’s focus shifts to over his shoulder, her eyes getting wide. When Sawyer finally turns around, Ben’s standing there, the glare from the playground lights glinting off of his glasses. 

“S-sorry,” he stutters, staring at them, before looking down at the ground. 

Sawyer just stares at the kid because he doesn't have the energy to deal with this. But apparently he’s going to have to because Ben takes a couple of steps towards them, like he wants to hang out or something. When he gets closer, Sawyer can see a bruise high up on his cheek, the kind a kid gets when his father belts him a little harder than he means to, and Christ, he just cannot handle this pathetic little kid version of Ben right now. 

“I was gonna play on the slide,” he says, kicking a little at the ground. Neither Sawyer or Juliet say anything and Ben licks his lips nervously. “But, um, maybe I should go back home?” 

He says it like he wants them to tell him it’s okay, that he can stay. Sawyer’s about to resign himself to that, when he looks quickly at Juliet and she’s got this look on her face like having to spend any time at all with Ben right now will just break her. 

So instead, Sawyer just rubs his forehead and sighs. “Go home, kid.” 

But Ben doesn’t leave, just stands there, looking pathetic and nervous and hurt and it’s only a minute or two until Sawyer can’t take it any more. He gets up and advances on him, making Ben back up nervously, stumbling a little over his own feet. 

“Get the hell out of here, Ben,” Sawyer says, low and serious. And, Jesus Christ, the kid looks like he’s gonna cry, but he goes, walking quickly towards the houses across the courtyard. 

Sawyer waits until he’s out of sight, then turns back to Juliet. She’s just staring into the distance, her eyes blank behind the blue and Sawyer wishes like hell he weren’t so helpless to do anything. “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

Juliet doesn’t respond, just keeps looking out at nothing. “Want me to see if I can get Horace to put Ben and his dad on the next sub?” he asks, only half-joking. Because if he could actually make that happen, that would solve so many problems. Just get Ben away from here early, so he’s not around in thirty years to fuck up their lives. "Or hell," he says. "I got a key to the armory, I can go over to the old Linus homestead tonight, make sure Ben never bothers us again." 

That finally gets her attention, and she turns to look at him. She gives him a sad smile and shakes her head. “He’s just a kid, James,” she says, like it doesn’t matter at all that that kid’s going to grow up one day and destroy her entire life or lock him in a cage and torture him.

“Yeah, well,” he says and stops, because he figures there’s just not much more he can say.

He sits on the swing next to her, reaching out so that they're holding hands across the distance between them. They stay out there like that for a little while longer, neither one of them saying anything at all.

**

** October **

When he comes home one day from work a few weeks later, Juliet’s sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of wine and an almost-empty bottle of Dharma merlot in front of her.

“Hey,” he says, dropping down into the chair next to her. She’s still wearing her motor pool jumpsuit and there’s a little bit of grease smeared high on her right cheek. “What’s up, grease monkey?”

“It’s my birthday,” she says, the words a little slurred. A quick glance at the clock over the stove tells him it’s only 5:30 and, damn, she must not have wasted any time getting started on the booze. 

“Oh yeah,” he says, reaching out and rubbing the grease away with the pad of his thumb. 

She nods and holds up three fingers. “I’m three,” she tells him. It takes him a minute to process what that means. She smiling at him a little, but her eyes are red-rimmed like she’s been crying and he just watches her carefully as she pours the rest of the wine into her glass. He’s never seen her like this, not in the entire year he’s known her, and it makes him feel horrible, watching her fall apart in the middle of their sunny yellow kitchen and having no idea why. 

“Three, huh?” he says, trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do here, how he’s supposed to handle this. Juliet don’t seem too interested in helping him figure it out, just nods and takes a long drink of wine. 

“Well,” he says, making a decision and taking the wine glass out of her hand. “Too young for this then.” 

“James,” she says, like a warning, like she’s not in mood for teasing or for him turning this into a joke.

“You should’ve told me it was your birthday,” he says, ignoring her. He pulls her to her feet and puts the glass back on the table, just out of her reach.

“Oh yeah?” she asks, still sounding kind of pissed. “And why is that?”

“So I could’ve got you a present,” he tells her, pressing a kiss right below her ear. 

“James,” she sighs, but some of the annoyance is gone from her voice and she leans into him.

“Come on,” he says, putting an arm around her and leading her back to their room. 

They spend most of the night just laying on the bed together, Juliet telling him stories about her as a kid, about her sister and her family and the life a three-year-old version of her is living right now somewhere halfway around the world. 

It’s nice, just laying here, listening to her talk, the way she smiles when she mentions her sister. Eventually, her eyes drift closed and she falls asleep, still wearing her work clothes. 

Sawyer stays awake for a while after that, watching her sleep and wishing there was something he could do that would make her as happy as she apparently used to be. 

*

The next day, he fakes being sick, calls in to work and everything. Even Juliet buys it and Sawyer can’t help feeling a little proud of himself, managing to con a doctor and all. 

Truth is, she scared him a little last night, talking about all the things she missed about her old life, the life that’s still out there somewhere, years and years in the future. Every day it seems more and more like she’s slipping away, that whatever is keeping her here ain’t doin’ such a great job of it any more. And after everything from the month before, with her telling him she thinks about leaving, with Ben being here, he just—he feels like he needs to do something to show her that he wants her to be here. 

Once Juliet heads off to work, Sawyer spends most of the day cleaning the house, making sure everything is shiny and perfect. He mops the floors, cleans the windows, does all the laundry—all the pain in the ass things that Juliet usually has to nag him about. By the time he’s done with all that, it’s mid-afternoon, and he realizes he needs to pick up the pace if he wants to get everything set up before she gets home from work.

The night before, after Juliet fell asleep, Sawyer snuck over to the cafeteria and raided the pantry. He managed to get his hands on a box of Dharma cake mix and now he’s gotta figure out how to actually bake the damn thing. It seems easy enough, but by the time he’s finally put the cake pan in the oven, and hour’s passed. The cake looks a little strange—watery and lumpy—and the kitchen’s a complete disaster area and he’s got this feeling like he missed a step somewhere. 

He takes a shower and shaves while the cake finishes up and, by the time he’s dressed and back in the kitchen, the whole house smells like chocolate. The buzzer on the oven goes off, and he spends way more time than he should trying to figure out how to turn it off. By the time he finally does, there’s a little smoke coming from the oven and he’s starting to get a little panicked. 

It takes him another couple of minutes to find something to use to take the hot pan out of the oven. When he opens the oven door, smoke starts billowing out. He pulls out the pan and puts it on top of the stove, scoping out the damage. The cake is somehow both completely charred around the edges and kind of a wet, spongy mess in the middle. Which, Sawyer doubts it’s supposed to look like that, but he doesn’t really know what happened with it or how to fix it. 

He glances at the clock and realizes he’s only got about an hour ‘til Juliet gets home, so he ends up just throwing the cake in the fridge and hoping that’ll somehow make it look more cake-like if he leaves it in there awhile. 

He’s still got a few more things to do, but he figures he probably can’t actually screw them up more than the cake. Since he didn’t have much time to put this whole thing together, he can’t actually get her a real birthday present, but there’s a bunch of flowers in the back of their house that she’s been trying to grow, and he picks a couple—all different kinds because he doesn’t actually know what kind is her favorite—and finds some kind of ribbon-looking thing in the drawer in the bathroom, ties them together to turn them into a makeshift bouquet. It’s pretty lame looking, truth be told—a couple of straggly yellow and orange flowers tied together with what is basically just a piece of red yarn—but it’s the best he can do on such short notice. 

By the time Juliet gets home, Sawyer’s got dinner—grilled cheese and canned tomato soup since that’s as far as his culinary talents have advanced—on the table and the crappy little flowers on a vase in the middle of the dining room table. The cake’s there too, still looking disgusting and he ain’t even sure why he didn’t just toss it, but he guesses he’s hoping she’ll at least appreciate the effort.

When she walks into the kitchen after kicking off her boots by the front door, he’s already started having second thoughts about his whole plan. He gets more and more nervous when Juliet just stands there, just inside the kitchen, this look on her face like she can’t quite figure out what’s going on. 

The longer she stands there, the worse he starts to feel and it’s just—he’s kind of putting a lot of pressure on this dinner. Like if she sees the crappy flowers he picked and the inedible cake he baked and the lame dinner he made then she’ll realize that she should stay there with him. And God, it’s such a stupid plan and he wonders if there’s any way he make this not such a disaster.

“Hey,” he says dumbly, silently cursing himself for not coming up with something better. Juliet just looks at him and he’s got no idea what she’s thinking. He runs a hand through his hair and smiles at her a little. “Uh,” he says, nodding at the table where all the food is. “I messed up your cake.” 

Juliet tilts her head and gives him this look like she barely understands a word he’s saying. Jesus, this is uncomfortable. He’s not sure exactly how he thought this would play out, but he’s pretty sure he thought she’d say something, not just stand there giving him funny looks. 

“And, uh,” he says, desperately trying to make this whole thing seem less weird and lame. “I stole those flowers from your garden in the back. So, um, sorry about—”

“James,” she says, interrupting him. He watches as she walks over to him, the way she smiles when she glances at the flowers in the vase. When she gets over to him, she puts her hand on the back of his neck and leans in, presses a soft kiss against his lips. “Thank you,” she whispers against his mouth, sounding more like herself than she has the past few weeks. “It’s perfect.” 

They eat dinner, Juliet smiling at him the whole time like him making sandwiches and soup is the most wonderful thing in the world. Neither one of them is actually brave enough to taste the cake, but Juliet reassures him over and over again that it was a nice gesture anyway. He just shakes his head, wondering how in the hell he managed to land someone as amazing as her. 

As they eat, she keeps glancing down at the flowers and shaking her head a little and even though it’s really great that this turned out so well, it makes Sawyer kind of vaguely depressed, knowing that something so simple can make her so happy. Like she’s not used to people going out of their way to do anything for her. He thinks that maybe he should probably try to do more stuff like this, that maybe that’s what a boyfriend—or whatever he is to her—should do.

**

** November **

November is the start of summer on the island, everyday hotter and more humid than the last. Sawyer spends most of his time inside in the security station, sitting in front of the single oscillating fan, trying not to die of heat stroke. 

When Juliet gets home from the motor pool in the evenings, she’s cranky and drenched in sweat, too tired to do much other than shower and lay on the couch. Not that Sawyer minds. There ain’t much he’d rather do than sit around their little house with her, reading trashy old paperbacks and listening to scratched-up records in their living room.

They’re doing just that late one Monday night, Juliet laying with her head in Sawyer’s lap, both of them reading while an old Hank Williams album plays in the background, when a storm moves in, pelting their windows with heavy drops of rain. The two of them hardly even notice, mostly because it rains damn near every day so one more storm ain’t exactly big news. But then there’s a bright flash of lightning followed fast by a loud crack of thunder and all the lights in the house flicker off and the record player screeches to a stop.

“Son of bitch,” Sawyer says, snapping his book shut and staring around the dark room. The curtains are open and outside everything’s dark, which means the lights are out all over the damn compound. He rubs a hand across his face, and looks down at Juliet, barely able to make her out in the darkness. 

“Maybe the power will come back soon,” she says, sounding doubtful. 

“Shit,” he says, because he knows it don’t work like that. If the power’s out for the whole damn place, then that means the electrical station was tripped and it’ll be at least a few hours before anyone can get it back up and running. He just hopes that anyone doesn’t include him. The last thing he wants is to go out in this fucking monsoon and try to help figure out how a fucking power plant works with that asshole Radzinsky.

He’s just about to say all of this to Juliet—tell her that if the phone rings she’s gonna have to answer so she can tell Horace he’s dead or whatever excuse she can think of so he doesn’t have to actually do anything—when the phone does ring. It’s times like this when Sawyer misses technology, cordless phones that need electricity to work. 

Juliet gets up and reaches blindly for the phone on the end table next to the couch. “Hello,” she says, sounding disoriented. “Yeah, Horace. Just a second.”

She holds out the phone to Sawyer and he takes it, silently cursing Horace for being so quick with the call. “LaFleur,” he says gruffly, hoping to sound pissed off enough so that Horace will leave him alone. While he’s on the phone with Horace, Juliet gets up from the couch and makes her way carefully into the kitchen.

Sawyer listens to Horace tell him that Radzinsky’s got the situation under control, that they probably aren’t going to need any help. He can hear Juliet moving around in the kitchen, opening drawers and moving stuff around. After a few more minutes of talking to Horace about the security generators and plan for the next few hours, Sawyer hangs up the phone and gets to his feet. The rain is coming down in sheets, making a muffled beating sound on the roof. He ain’t afraid of the dark or anything, but it’s damn eerie with the storm and all.

His eyes have adjusted to the dark but it’s still black as pitch in the house. “Juliet,” he calls, wondering what the hell she’s doing. “You okay?”

He makes his way blindly into the kitchen, stubbing his toe hard on the wall that divides the room. “Fuck!” he yells, probably a little louder than necessary. It’s just--Jesus Christ that hurt. He hears a sound like a match being struck and suddenly there’s light in the kitchen. He looks up and Juliet’s standing there, holding a lit candle and looking worried.

“What happened?” she asks, eyes wide. 

“Nothin’,” he says, feeling a little stupid. “Just ran into the damn wall.” She smirks at him and walks over to where he’s kneeling on the floor, toe throbbing. She holds the candle close to his foot, probably to make sure he’s not gushing blood all over her nice clean floors.

“You’ll live,” she tells him, holding out her free hand to help him to his feet. 

She looks real pretty in the candlelight, her skin kind of glowing and golden, and he forgets about the storm and the blackout, just thinks about touching her. When he leans in to kiss her she laughs a little, right in his face.

“What?” he asks, brushing his lips against hers. 

“I got the candle so we could keep reading, James,” she tells him, but she doesn’t move away from him, just keeps standing there so that her body is pressed against his.

“Hmm,” he says, and slides a hand up under her shirt. She gasps against his mouth when he trails his fingers lightly up her sides, brushing against her breasts, and he kisses her again, biting a little on her lip until she opens her mouth under his. 

They make their way back to the bedroom, Juliet almost dropping the candle twice, but not breaking away from him even though they’re probably going to set the house of fire.

When they do finally manage to get to the bed, Juliet sets the candle on the nightstand and pushes him gently down on the bed so that she can lay on top of him. She reaches down and pulls her shirt over her head and he can’t keep his eyes off of her, watching her in the glow of the candlelight. 

*

For some reason, Juliet gets it in her head that they need to have a real Thanksgiving dinner. Sawyer ain’t quite sure why she’s suddenly decided she wants play Martha Stewart and host a damn dinner party, but it's a dumb idea if you ask him. But when he tells her that it seems unnecessary, that he’s never even really done the whole Thanksgiving thing since he was eight years old, she just shakes her head and smirks at him, like he’s completely missing the point.

She spends the whole two days before Thanksgiving cooking and asking Sawyer to run over to the supply pantry across the barracks every five minutes to get her some ingredient she forgot. Sawyer spends those couple of days rolling his eyes at her and playfully mocking her about missing Dharma parties so much she has to throw her own the one time Horace actually decides to let everyone just relax on their own. 

The truth is, though, Sawyer’s kind of excited. The house smells amazing from all the food and Juliet looks happier than he's seen her in weeks. Plus, it’s just going to be them and Miles and Jin so it ain't like it's a real Dharma party. 

The dinner turns out to be a lot of fun—just the four of them eating turkey and drinking wine and joking around. Turns out, Jin's never actually done the Thanksgiving thing, so Miles and Sawyer and Juliet spend a lot of the time making up all kinds of "traditions" that they try and convince him are all part of the celebration. 

By the time Jin and Miles leave, the two of them stumbling drunkenly over to their house next door, it’s almost midnight and Juliet looks completely beat.

She walks into the kitchen and starts stacking dishes by the sink. Sawyer follows her, reaching out and putting an arm around her waist as she stands next to the table.

“Hey,” he says, taking a couple of dirty plates out of her hand and setting them back on the table. “I got this. You should take a shower. Go to bed.”

“You sure?” she asks him, and he knows she must be tired since she’s not even putting up a token fight.

“I’m sure,” he says. She starts to turn away, towards the back of the house, and he pulls her back to him. “Thank you,” he says, kissing her lightly. “Tonight was amazing.”

She smiles at him and the look she gives him makes his chest feel kind of tight—the way it always does when she looks so grateful because of something so trivial. What he'd really like to do is leave all of this mess until morning, pull her into the bedroom with him and show her how much he appreciates everything’s she’s done for him these past few months. But she’s just standing there, looking like she’s about to fall asleep standing up, so he just presses a kiss against the top of her head. “Get some sleep,” he says. “I’ll be in in a few minutes.”

Cleaning up takes a lot longer than he figured it would, and it’s another hour before he manages to make it to their bedroom. The room is dark and silent as he strips off his clothes and gets into the bed next to Juliet. She’s laying so that she’s facing him, and as he slides under the covers, her eyes blink open and she smiles sleepily at him. 

“Hey,” he whispers, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Hi,” she whispers back, her voice thick with sleep. “Thanks for cleaning up.”

He shrugs and moves over a little more, kissing her gently. He doesn’t really expect her to respond seeing as how it’s so late and she’s clearly exhausted, but she kisses him back, running her tongue along his bottom lip. She pushes herself up so that she’s on top of him, reaching down and taking him in her hand.

They have the kind of slow, sleepy sex that feels a little like it’s part of a dream, rocking slowly against each other, Sawyer moving his hands over her gently, touching her everywhere he can. 

Afterwards, she lays with her head on his chest, warm and comforting against him. After a few minutes, she pushes herself up so they’re face to face. He smiles at her and she leans up and kisses him softly. 

“I love you,” she whispers against his mouth and, all of a sudden, it’s like he can’t breathe. He doesn’t say anything, just lays there like he’s frozen, feeling a little like everything’s happening kind of fast and getting a little out of hand. It’s just...Jesus Christ, how can she be in love with him.

He doesn’t say anything for too long, and the silence starts to get uncomfortable. And, fuck, what the hell is wrong with him? He knows he should tell her he loves her, hell he wants to say it, but he just can’t bring himself to do it. Nevermind the fact that he's probably said it hundreds of time to hundreds of different women, he looks at her and it's like the words just won't come. It’s just, he’s never been in this situation before, not really, not when it’s real like this. 

“Juliet,” he finally says, not looking at her. When he glances up, she shifts her gaze, so she’s staring somewhere over by his right shoulder. Her face has kind of closed off, going blank like it does when she’s really upset. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “Just—just don’t.” 

He doesn’t know what to say to that and he waits for her to say something else, something cruel or cutting, something he knows how to respond to. But she doesn’t say anything, just closes her eyes and rolls over, laying on the very edge of the bed so that she’s not facing him, the line of her back ramrod straight.

*

He keeps waiting for her to fix it. Which is completely unfair, he knows, considering that he’s the one who fucked everything up, but he doesn’t have a clue what to do. And she must know that. Hell, she knows practically everything about him from those files—if she knows about Duckett, she must know that Sawyer’s never had a real relationship in his life, and just—why can’t she cut him some slack on this? 

It’s getting to the point where he wonders if she even meant it at all or if it was just some kind of mind game she’s playing. It’s just—if she did love him, if she really meant it, he’d think that would mean that she wouldn’t just shut down like this, that she’d understand that he just needs a little bit of time to sort everything out. 

It’s hard for him to really think clearly about it, though. The thing is, he’s only ever said it one time when he really meant it, when it wasn’t just part of a con. And when he did, when he told Kate he loved her, it was pretty much the beginning of the end that relationship. Kate hardly even talked to him after that, unless it was to get something from him or make herself feel better about some damn thing that happened. 

So, yeah, he’s got some issues with the whole stupid thing. He just doesn’t understand why Juliet couldn’t just leave it, things were finally going really great. And now everything is fragile and off-balance and it’s like there’s this wall between them and it seems like the only way to fix it is the one thing he just ain’t capable of right now.

**

** December **

Things don’t change too much after that, except for all the ways they do. There’s this distance between them, things reverting to how they were when they first got here, when they used to tiptoe around each other, uncomfortable and tense with the forced intimacy of sharing a house. At night, they lay on opposite sides of the bed, Juliet seeming to go out of her way not to touch him, making him feel lonelier than he ever has in his life. After only a few days of this, Sawyer starts to get kind of desperate, doing anything he can to get her to come back around, to make things how they used to be just a few weeks ago, back when things were so great. 

He makes her dinner practically every night—he’s even learning how to cook for fuck’s sake—and makes to sure that he keeps the house clean and everything just where she likes it and lets her pick the record selection every night and nothing makes a difference. She always thanks him when he does something for her, smiles and acts perfectly pleasant, and God, it’s so much worse than if she were yelling at him and being a bitch. 

And Sawyer hates this so much. He’s got no idea what he’s supposed to do and the bitch of it is that she’s completely wrong about everything. He loves her. He does. It’s just, he can’t say it now because she’ll think it’s a lie, even though it’s not, and he’s almost completely positive that if he makes the wrong move now, it will be over for good. And, God, he couldn’t deal with that. 

He can't imagine being here, or anywhere, for that matter, without her right there with him. And the idea that he could be, that she could just leave and not be right there anymore…well. That’s not something he can handle, so he’s going to do everything he can to make sure she stays with him. The problem is, he's got no clue what that is. 

*

Sawyer’s dreading Christmas more than he can ever remember dreading anything in his life. 

Last month, before everything with him and Juliet went to complete shit, he spent weeks wracking his brain about what he should get her for Christmas. He’d already fucked up by not knowing her birthday, so he wanted to get her something really amazing. The problem was he had no fucking idea what that might be.

Feeling desperate, he eventually went to Horace for help. He felt like a total idiot, but he figured the man would at least know a little something about working with the restrictions of not having much money or even access to a store. But then Horace suggested Sawyer get her jewelry, which was pretty much the worst idea Sawyer’d ever heard. What the hell was Juliet going to do with jewelry for Christ’s sake? They lived on a hippie commune in the middle of nowhere where everyone wore jumpsuits everyday of their lives. The idea of handing her a necklace or a pair of damn earrings seemed completely absurd.

He finally decided to get her a book— _Carrie_ just came out a few months ago and she'd mentioned one time that it was her favorite, so he figured he could get her a first edition pretty easy. 

The damn book doesn’t get there until the week before Christmas. He’d almost forgotten about it, forgotten that he’s spent weeks trying to think up the perfect present. A present that she probably ain’t even going to want any more.

When he finally opens the supply box from the sub on Christmas Eve, the book’s right on top, looking shiny and new and reminding him of how royally he’d managed to fuck up everything.

He turns the book over in his hands a few times, running his fingers along the raised words on the cover. Why the fuck did he get her a book? Maybe he should have taken Horace’s advice and gotten her something shiny and expensive, something that would show her that he thinks something about her other than that she reads. After a few minutes he sighs, stashing the book in top drawer of his nightstand.

*

When he wakes up on Christmas morning, Juliet’s already gone, her side of the bed neatly made and looking like she didn’t even sleep there. The whole compound is shut down for the holiday, so both him and Juliet are off from work and he can hear her moving around in the front of the house.

He sighs and gets out of bed, pulling up the sheets to make his own side as neat as hers. After staring at the nightstand for an absurd amount of time, he decides to just leave the book in there. It ain't like she'd want a present from him, anyways.

When he walks out into the kitchen, Juliet’s standing at the stove, a pan of bacon crackling in front of her, and there’s a small box on the kitchen table, wrapped in festive green and red paper, a big gold bow on top. He just stands there for a few minutes, kind of taken aback.

“Hey,” he says, clearing his throat and rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.

“Hi,” she says, turning to smile at him over her shoulder. It’s been a while since she’s looked this happy and he doesn’t quite know how to react. “Merry Christmas.”

He smiles back at her. “Merry Christmas to you too, Blondie.”

“Breakfast is almost ready,” she says, reaching over and turning off the stove. He just stands there and watches as she puts the food on a couple of plates and carries them over to the table. “James?” she says, tilting her head and looking at him like he’s insane.

It’s just—he doesn’t really know what’s going on. This isn’t the normal distant politeness that she’s been showing him the past few weeks. It’s more like how it was before, when she actually seemed to like being around him. 

They eat breakfast mostly in silence, neither one of them mentioning the present that’s sitting right next to them. Even though they don’t talk much, Sawyer feels like things are finally going back to normal.

“So,” she says, once they’re done eating. “Are you going to open your present or what?”

She hands him the box and he smiles, knowing he’s probably grinning like a damn moron. He tears off the wrapping paper and opens the box, revealing a shiny silver pocket watch. 

He takes the watch out of the box, turning it over in his hands. It’s a really nice watch, and just looking at it makes him feel almost absurdly happy. The truth is, it's probably the nicest thing anyone's ever given him. When he looks up, she's watching him carefully. “Thanks, Jules,” he says quietly.

She shrugs. “Merry Christmas, James.” 

They just kind of stare at each other for a little while before he puts the watch carefully back in the box. “I’ll be right back,” he tells her and heads back to their bedroom. He grabs the book from the beside table, realizing a little late that maybe he should have wrapped it or something.

When he gets back to the kitchen, Juliet’s just kind of staring at the wall, looking upset. She hears him walk up and turns to him with a smile, and he wonders if maybe he just imagined the sadness from a second ago.

“I, uh, didn’t have any wrapping paper,” he tells her, handing her the book. 

She takes the book from him, flipping it open to read the first page. When she looks back up, she’s grinning at him and he gets this feeling in his chest like his heart’s beating normal for the first time in weeks. 

He helps her clean up the kitchen, the two of them talking about everyday things, just like they used to before. By the time they’ve washed all the dishes, Sawyer feels happier than he has in weeks. He finishes putting away the plates and then walks over to Juliet, stepping right up in to her personal space. She puts a hand on his chest and takes a step back, away from him.

“I'm sorry,” she says sounding as horrible as he feels. “I just, I can't do this any more.” 

His stomach drops. “What the hell does that mean?” 

She doesn't answer him, just picks up her book and walks back to the bedroom, the sound of the door clicking closed behind her making him feel even worse. He sits there, holding the watch in his hand, and wondering how the hell he managed to fuck this up so completely.

*

The next couple of days are incredibly tense, so much so that Sawyer starts volunteering to take extra shifts at the security station. So any time anyone calls in, LaFleur’s on it, no matter if he has to work a double or a graveyard shift.

He can tell Horace is impressed by his sudden dedication to his job and Sawyer can’t believe that all it’s taken him to be a responsible adult is completely destroying the one thing in his life that makes him happy. 

*

Horace throws a New Year’s party, of course. If it was up to Sawyer he’d just stay home and skip out on the whole damn thing, but Juliet says she’s going so that decides it. 

At least Jin and Miles are planning on going, too. Worst case scenario, Sawyer spends the night standing around the bar with Jin getting drunk. Plus, Miles will probably spend a good chunk of the night trying to hook up with random Dharma chicks, which should be good for a few laughs.

But when they’re actually at the party, both Miles and Jin disappear pretty quick. Miles has found some girl who’s somehow willing to put up with him for more than five minutes, and the two of them spend most of the night making out at a table in the corner.

Jin ends up leaving even earlier than he normally does for these things, sitting quietly next to Sawyer and Juliet for about twenty minutes before he tells them he’s going home. 

And then it’s just him and Juliet, sitting silently next to each other at the crappy little makeshift bar that Horace set up earlier.

There are a lot of people here tonight, more than normally show up to these things. The room is decorated like it’s a fucking middle school dance, streamers and balloons taped up to all the walls. 

Sawyer keeps glancing over at Juliet out of the corner of his eye, wondering why she was so intent on coming tonight. She’s barely said a word, just keeps sitting there and watching everyone else dancing and laughing and having fun. 

Sawyer gets pretty drunk pretty quick, wondering why in the hell he’s sticking around when it’s clear that Juliet don’t care one way or the other. But, then, right when he’s almost convinced himself that he should just go home, forget about ever trying to fix any of this, Juliet stands up and takes his hand.

He follows her out to the dance floor, feeling a little nervous. Dancing ain’t exactly his scene, but it’s the first time in more than a month that Juliet’s initiated any kind of physical contact with him and if she wants him to do the fucking Hustle then that’s what he’ll do. 

Once they’re actually standing out there though, Sawyer feels incredibly stupid. He can’t even remember the last time he actually danced and he’s got no clue what to do. Luckily, the song that starts up when they get out there is kind of slow and mellow, not something that requires any kind of skill or group participation.

He just stands there at first, staring at Juliet, no idea where he should put his hands. After a few seconds, she rolls her eyes and takes a step towards him, so that they’re bodies are just barely touching. Juliet wraps her arms around his neck and he gently moves his hands behind her, holding her closer to him, and they start dancing a little. Or, well, maybe not exactly dancing, but kind of standing in the middle of all the hippies, their bodies pressed against each other, swaying a little.

Juliet rests her head on his shoulder and, Jesus, it’s just been a really long time since he’s been this close to her. Her hair’s gotten so long that the tips of it brush softly against his hands and he can feel her breath on his neck, warm and sweet. She’s moving her hips against his, real subtle, she’s not, like, grinding against him or even doing anything overtly sexual, but it’s more intimate than anything they’ve done in weeks and it doesn’t take long before he’s hard.

When the song ends, they stand there like that a little longer, Sawyer trying to make the contact last as long as possible. Another song starts up, this one fast and poppy, and he feels Juliet take a deep breath. She stops moving and moves her head so that her lips brush against his ear. 

“Let’s go home,” she whispers, and even though it’s nowhere close to midnight, Sawyer grabs her hand and leads her out the door.

The walk over to their house is kind of awkward, neither one of them talking, but Sawyer holds her hand the whole walk there and she doesn’t once try to pull away. He guesses that’s probably a pretty good sign.

When they finally make it to their house, Sawyer leads Juliet back to their bedroom. When he shuts the door behind them, she gets this kind of panicked look on her face, and he worries that she’s gonna back out of this.

He kisses her before she has a chance to change her mind, and maybe that’s cheating, but she kisses him back without much hesitation, so Sawyer figures it’s okay.

They make their way over to the bed and he reaches behind her, unzips her dress and then pushes it off her shoulders. He lowers her on to the bed and Sawyer forces himself to go slow, to be gentle, even though it feels like it’s been forever and he just wants to bury himself in her.

At first, she keeps her eyes closed, her head turned a little to the side, just enough so that if she does open her eyes, she’s still not looking at him. He takes his time, going slow hoping that she’ll see how much he’s wanted this the past few weeks, how much he’s missed her. He runs his tongue along her collarbone, sliding two fingers inside of her until she gasps. He presses his hands lightly against her hips, and then moves down her body, kissing his way down her throat, across her breasts, along the smooth skin on her stomach and lower and lower until he hears her gasp.

Her eyes are still shut when he moves back up her body so that they’re face to face, and she bites down on her lip and gasps when he slides inside of her. He rocks against her, kissing that place below her neck that always makes her shiver. When she comes, she doesn’t make any noise—doesn’t say his name like she normally does—just buries her face in the crook of his neck, biting down on his shoulder.

Sawyer keeps moving against her, trying to make it last as long as he can. Once she starts breathing normally again, she opens her eyes, making eye contact with him, and that’s what pushes him over the edge.

Afterwards, they lay in bed face to face, and Sawyer keeps on hand on her waist, kind of afraid that once he stops touching her she’ll shut down again. 

It doesn’t take very long for her eyes to start to drift closed and as they do, he starts to feel a little panicked. Like this is it, his last real chance to fix everything that’s been wrong this past month.

“Juliet,” he whispers and then stops. He waits a few seconds until she opens her eyes and looks at him, wanting to make sure that she knows how serious he is about this. “I love you,” he says, and his heart is pounding.

She doesn’t say anything, just stares at him, a serious look on her face. He’s started to get this horrible feeling in his chest, almost a physical pain, realizing that maybe it’s too late. That he really did manage to fuck this up so much that it can never be fixed. “I’m sorry,” he says, desperately. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it before. I was scared or stupid or...shit, Blondie, I don’t know. Just—I love you.” He stops talking, aware that he’s been rambling on like an idiot while she just stares at him.

But then, after what feels like forever, she smiles and reaches out to brush a strand of hair away from his face. “Well James,” she says seriously, “I love you back.” 

And hearing her say it again, still sounding like she means it, like she never stopped meaning it, it’s just—it’s the most ridiculously amazing feeling in the world. 

He kisses her then, full of this feeling like he’ll never stop smiling and somewhere on the other side of Dharmaville, people are cheering and clapping and it’s 1975.


End file.
